Recently new types of fresh fruit and vegetable packaging have been appearing in supermarket produce aisles, including shaker cups, mini buckets, and new takes on more traditional containers. These packaging trends offer exciting opportunities for new merchandising strategies-strategies with multisensory reach that greatly differentiate a product from the others on the shelf.
Sight: This is usually the first sense that comes to mind, but visual strategy goes much further than simply employing bright colors or images of familiar cartoon characters on the package. The shape of the container has great visual impact, such as the clear window offered with topseal film closure, or the attractive unique shape of a miniature bucket with color-popping handle. Placement in open spaces, middle shelves, and even in the center of aisles also helps attract the shopper’s eye.
Smell: Particularly good smelling products are often packaged in ventilated containers. For this reason, picking up a package of strawberries or tomatoes offers a much more immersive experience than grabbing a bag of rice or can of beans. Since smell is crucially connected to taste, it can be very attractive to shoppers.
Touch: The weight of a package or texture of its surface can heavily impact consumer experience. Just as important and can be the shape of a container, like an easy-to-hold shaker cup, or value-adding features such as the handles on miniature buckets or flat-bottom zipper bags, which encourage the shopper to interact with the product and facilitate transporting it.